1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data base management systems and more particularly relates to enhancements for providing access to data base management systems via internet user terminals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Data base management systems are well known in the data processing art. Such commercial systems have been in general use for more than 20 years. One of the most successful data base management systems is available from Unisys Corporation and is called the MAPPER(copyright) data base management system. The MAPPER system can be reviewed using the MAPPER User""s Guide, incorporated herein by reference, which may be obtained from Unisys Corporation.
The MAPPER system, which runs on various hardware platforms also available from Unisys Corporation, provides a way for clients to partition data bases into structures called cabinets, drawers, and reports, as a way to offer a more tangible format. The MAPPER data base manager utilizes various predefined high-level instructions whereby the data base user may manipulate the data base to generate human-readable data presentations. The user is permitted to prepare lists of the various predefined high-level instructions into data base manager programs called xe2x80x9cMAPPER Runsxe2x80x9d. Thus, users of the MAPPER system may create, modify, and add to a given data base and also generate periodic and aperiodic updated reports using various MAPPER Runs.
However, with the MAPPER system, as well as with similar proprietary data base management systems, the user must interface with the data base using a terminal coupled directly to the proprietary system and must access and manipulate the data using the MAPPER command language of MAPPER. Ordinarily, that means that the user must either be co-located with the hardware which hosts the data base management system or must be coupled to that hardware through dedicated data links. Furthermore, the user usually needs to be schooled in the command language of MAPPER (or other proprietary data base management system) to be capable of generating MAPPER Runs.
Since the advent of large scale, dedicated, proprietary data base management systems, the internet or world wide web has come into being. Unlike closed proprietary data base management systems, the internet has become a world wide bulletin board, permitting all to achieve nearly equal access using a wide variety of hardware, software, and communication protocols. Even though some standardization has developed, one of the important characteristics of the world wide web is its ability to constantly accept new and emerging techniques within a global framework. Many current users of the internet have utilized several generations of hardware and software from a wide variety of suppliers from all over the world. It is not uncommon for current day young children to have ready access to the world wide web and to have substantial experience in data access using the internet.
Thus, the major advantage of the internet is its universality. Nearly anyone, anywhere can become a user. That means that virtually all persons are potentially internet users without the need for specialized training and/or proprietary hardware and software. One can readily see that providing access to a proprietary data base management system, such as MAPPER, through the internet would yield an extremely inexpensive and universally available means for accessing the data which it contains and such access would be without the need for considerable specialized training.
There are two basic problems with permitting internet access to a proprietary data base. The first is a matter of security. Because the internet is basically a means to publish information, great care must be taken to avoid intentional or inadvertent access to certain data by unauthorized internet users. In practice this is substantially complicated by the need to provide various levels of authorization to internet users to take full advantage of the technique. For example, one might have a first level involving no special security features available to any internet user. A second level might be for specific customers, whereas a third level might be authorized only for employees. One or more fourth levels of security might be available for officers or others having specialized data access needs.
Existing data base managers have security systems, of course. However, because of the physical security with a proprietary system, a certain degree of security is inherent in the limited access. On the other hand, access via the internet is virtually unlimited which makes the security issue much more acute.
Current day security systems involving the world wide web involve the presentation of a user-id and password. Typically, this user-id and password either provides access or denies access in a binary fashion. To offer multiple levels of secure access using these techniques would be extraordinarily expensive and require the duplication of entire databases and or substantial portions thereof. In general, the advantages of utilizing the world wide web in this fashion to access a proprietary data base are directly dependent upon the accuracy/and precision of the security system involved. Furthermore, it is customary for passwords to have an expiration date and or expiration time.
The second major problem is imposed by the internet protocol itself. One of the characteristics of the internet which makes it so universal is that any single transaction in HTML language combines a single transfer (or request) from a user coupled with a single response from the internet server. In general, there is no means for linking multiple transfers (or requests) and multiple responses. In this manner, the internet utilizes a transaction model which may be referred to as xe2x80x9cstatelessxe2x80x9d. This limitation ensures that the internet, its users, and its servers remain sufficiently independent during operation that no one entity or group of entities can unduly delay or xe2x80x9chang-upxe2x80x9d the communications system or any of its major components. Each transmission results in a termination of the transaction. Thus, there is no general purpose means to link data from one internet transaction to another, even though in certain specialized applications limited amounts of data may be coupled using xe2x80x9ccookiesxe2x80x9d or via attaching data to a specific HTML screen.
However, some of the most powerful data base management functions or services of necessity rely on coupling data from one transaction to another in dialog fashion. In fact this linking is of the essence of MAPPER Runs which assume change of state from one command language statement to the next. True statelessness from a first MAPPER command to the next or subsequent MAPPER command would preclude much of the power of MAPPER (or any other modern data base management system) as a data base management tool and would eliminate data base management as we now know it.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method of and apparatus for utilizing the power of a full featured data base management system by a user at a terminal coupled to the world wide web or internet while maintaining security. In order to permit any such access, the present invention must first provide an interface, herein referred to generically as a gateway, which translates transaction data transferred from the user over the internet in HTML format into a format from which data base management system commands and inputs may be generated. The gateway must also convert the data base management system responses and outputs for usage on the user""s internet terminal. Thus, as a minimum, the gateway must make these format and protocol conversions. In the preferred embodiment, the gateway resides in the web server coupled to the user via the world wide web and coupled to proprietary data base management system.
To make access to a proprietary data base by internet users practical, a sophisticated security system is required to prevent intentional or inadvertent unauthorized access to the sensitive data of an organization. As discussed above, such a security system should provide multiple levels of access to accommodate a variety of authorized user categories. One type of prior art usage of the proprietary data base involves a security profile associated with a particular user site. This practice originally resulted from dedicated terminals operating in enterprise secure areas via dedicated data links. This site specific access is particularly effective when the function performed by the user takes precedence over the identity of the specific user.
Site specific security profiles tend to offer access to more sensitive data only if the user terminal site is physically secure. On the other hand, site specific profiles may offer only limited or no access to sensitive data when the user terminal site is not particularly secure. These features can be effectively combined with physical security procedures to provide many specialized security profiles. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, site specific security profiles are implemented using a secret field, which identifies the user terminal site. This identifier is utilized by the Cool ICE system to define the appropriate level of site security for the transferring user terminal.
From the system perspective, rather than defining several levels of data classification, the different classes of users and user sites are managed by identifying a security profile as a portion of those service requests requiring access to secure data. Thus, the security profile accompanies the data/service to be accessed. The user simply need execute the sign on procedure which correlates to the access permitted. This permits certain levels of data to be accessed by one or more of the several classes of user.
In the preferred mode of practicing the present invention, a user signs on to the gateway with a generic login protocol providing access as an unsecured user. All users of the gateway sign on in a similar fashion. Should the user request access to a secure function or to secure data, the gateway, rather than the secure service, manages the security profiling technique. The service request for secure access results in the gateway requesting such additional logon information as is required to permit the desired access. In this way, the web browser request is associated with security attributes so that each web user transaction attaches to the database management system object using the security obtained from the Cool ICE session object.
To enhance the overall security of the system, passwords are provided with an expiration time and/or date. Thus, there is a limitation upon risk of damage, even upon compromise. In accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the data base management system determines expiration of passwords. After such determination, the system automatically interrogates the user terminal to permit reassignment of another unexpired password.
Whereas the gateway and the security system are the minimum necessary to permit the most rudimentary form of communication between the internet terminal of the user and the proprietary data base management system, as explained above, the internet is a xe2x80x9cstatelessxe2x80x9d communication system; the addition of the gateway and the security system do not change this statelessness. To unleash the real power of the data base management system, the communication protocol between the data base and the user requires functional interaction between the various data transfers.
The present invention adds security management and state management to this environment. Instead of considering each transfer from the internet user coupled with the corresponding server response as an isolated transaction event as defined by the world wide web, one or more related service requests may be functionally associated in a service request sequence as defined by the data base management system into a dialog.
A repository is established to store the state of the service request sequence. As such, the repository can store intermediate requests and responses, as well as other data associated with the service request sequence. Thus, the repository buffers commands, data, and intermediate products utilized in formatting subsequent data base management service requests and in formatting subsequent data to be available to the user""s browser.
The transaction data in HTML format received by the server from the user, along with the state information stored in the repository, are processed by a service handler into a sequence of service requests in the command language of the data base management system.
Through the use of the repository to store the state of the service request sequence, the service handler to execute data base management commands, the world wide web user is capable of performing each and every data base management function available to any user, including a user from a proprietary terminal having a dedicated communication link which is co-located with the proprietary data base management system hardware and software. In addition, the data base management system user at the world wide web terminal is able to accomplish this without extensive training concerning the command language of the data base management system.
Access to a web application server through a browser is transactional by nature. Secured access to a web application server from a browser typically involves ending logon information to the server from the browser. Logon information may contain a password, and this password may have an expiration date.
Login information is typically solicited with an HTML based form. When a password has expired, the formerly valid password submitted by a user will fail to gain access to the web application server.
The problem solved is the mechanism for setting the new user password upon detection of an expired password. This involves a sequence of transactions managed by the web application server to:
connect to the server so that the password can be changed.
execute a service to solicit a new password.
retrieve the new password value, and change the user""s password.
connect to the server using the new logon information.
An expired password would often be treated the same as an invalid password, sending back an HTML form stating that the logon information is incorrect, and to contact the web administrator.
Using a prior solution, access to a web service has simply been denied, and the session terminated.
The specified solution is superior, in that it has abstracted SignOn logic out of the web service, so that the specific service need not be concerned with security. This invention maps a URL provided by the browser (i.e., a gateway) to security attributes maintained on the server. Administration of session attributes provides for the automatic solicitation of user password information when the existing password has expired that is then stored in the session object for a subsequent browser request. Thus a web application developer need only be concerned with developing the logic needed for the service itself, as security is automatically managed by this invention.